But Jamie Carragher, the only other central defender to play a full part in training today, has plenty of experience and Lampard was not entirely dismissive of the idea Ledley King could do the job even though, as was the case today, a large percentage of his training takes place through individual gym sessions.

"Of course you need to work on the training ground and it's not ideal, but Ledley and John are intelligent enough to understand each other," Lampard said.